I've loved crime drama ever since I was a kid. I remember, growing up, I'd stay up late watching Nick At Nite when they had episodes of Dragnet. I don't remember much of the actual show, but I remember being completely enthralled by it. Later in life, I found Law & Order, and I love it just as much. I'd watch it whenever I could. Law & Order original, and SVU, are like crack to me. My Dad, two years ago, bought me the complete box set of the original Law & Order series for Christmas. Get this...it's 20 seasons. Twenty freaking seasons. And I watched every episode over the course of months (save for a few episodes where the DvD was scratched).

I always like thinking about that. Twenty years of Law & Order, starting in 1991. I could have grown up on this show. Also, Jack McCoy is my spirit animal. I see so much of myself in him it's uncanny.

I started getting back into the DvDs again as I was waiting for something, and I'm hooked all over again. The nuance and detail of the law, the moral ramifications off whether or not to pursue, it's just an amazing show. I won't lie, there's this feeling in the back of my head that tells me that this may have been something that this could have been a career choice that would have made me happy. There's something completely fascinating about law, and especially the stone-cold decision making that comes with it, that probably would have meshed real well with my personality.

I don't know if there's a "multiverse". But I like to fantasize that maybe if life turned out differently...maybe if I had been born smarter, or been a more disciplined person, that this would have been a career I'd have now. You know, something where my father isn't apparently ashamed of me. That'd be nice.

Yeah, I know it's a show and of course they make it look more interesting than it really is. That's the point of television. But something about it speaks to me on a deep, fundamental level. Something that tells me that this would have made me happy.

But I can't pretend that it's any sort of viable goal for me in the real world. My grades in high school were spotty - some things I did great in (math, science), and other subjects that I did poorly in or outright flunked (social studies, foreign language, and in that order). And while it's difficult to describe exactly, there's been a lot of little incidences in my life that lead me to conclude that I do not have great deductive reasoning skills. I doubt that I'd make any sort of good lawyer or prosecutor.

So I sit here, with an empty pizza box on the couch next to me, in my tiny apartment, where I have to stay up late tonight so I can switch my sleep schedule around because I need to work a week of overnight shifts.

Yeah, life would be nice if it had turned out differently.

Quite nice indeed.